Past is always present at Chicago Improv Festival

April 28, 2007|By Chris Jones, Tribune theater critic

Flash back to 1999 at the Live Bait Theater. Typically a sparsely attended joint, the place is packed, mostly with urban singles headed later to the bars. They've come to see a hilarious dating-themed improv show performed by a quirky, over-the-top blond woman named Jill Benjamin and her smooth, camera-ready partner, Seth Meyers. It's clear that the out-there, faux-ditsy Benjamin -- who lands somewhere between Melissa Rivers and Sandra Bernhard -- is the more distinctive talent that no one with power and money will ever quite know what to do with. It's equally clear that the handsome, whip-smart, adaptable Meyers will be the one with the big career.

Meyers sits behind the Weekend Update desk on "Saturday Night Live." Benjamin improvises in clubs. But on Thursday night at the 10th Annual Chicago Improv Festival, they were back together, doing the same killer show, the one that ended their partnership and sent their careers shooting in different directions after an "SNL" scout saw the show at, ironically enough, this very festival.

Nostalgic reunions are an integral part of CIF, which continues through Sunday. Instead of confining itself mostly to the Athenaeum Theatre (the location of Thursday night's show), this year's festival switches locations. Late on Saturday night, Meyers' "SNL" colleague, Amy Poehler, is slated to show up at Park West to improvise with the Upright Citizens Brigade. And writers and performers from MAD-TV are in town.

But Thursday night belonged to the hot Benjamin and the cool Meyers. Even in 1999, "Pickups and Hiccups" was an extraordinarily good show (I saw it three times), not least because it was uncommonly funny and uncommonly polished. Even though their scenarios were built from audience suggestions, Meyers and Benjamin built the tightest of structures -- climaxing in a moment when Meyers reprised every suggestion of the night (in order), as part of a stream-of-consciousness splurge that revealed his astonishing memory. Every moment snagged a laugh. Every transition was incisive. Every observation was smart.

At appearances such as this, plenty of performers get sloppy, hoping fame and nostalgia will suffice. Not these guys. The warring daters might be facing middle age now, but that only deepened the desperation of their scenarios. As before, the show relied on an unspoken but evident subtext -- the needy character gal who wants and deserves but doesn't ever quite get the handsome leading man. From one side or another, it's a power game every single person understands. And Meyers and Benjamin, two of the brightest comic talents ever to emerge from Chicago, have had that shtick down for years.